Source of elevator troubles found

After another elevator shutdown Wednesday morning, Residential Maintenance officials think they may have found the source of the recurring failures in the newly renovated High Rise South elevators. During Wednesday's incident, mechanics determined that a deficiency in the elevator's power pack was responsible for the failure, Residential Maintenance Associate Director Al Zuino said yesterday. And Residential Maintenance officials now believe that the power pack -- which supplies energy to each elevator car -- is the cause of last weekend's trio of elevator shut-downs in High Rise South as well. The power pack may have received or sent a "fake signal" that led to the elevator stoppage, Zuino said. "We now have to observe operation of the elevator to see if that was it," he added. Mechanics installed a new power pack yesterday, hoping that would solve the problem. Residential Maintenance did not spend any money on the repair because it was covered by warranty. Two students were trapped for an hour and a half on the 18th floor in one of the renovated elevators Saturday. Two other students were stuck on the seventh floor for 10 minutes the same day. And Friday night, one of the two renovated elevators got stuck because of a problem the computer diagnostic system called a "door lock." Mechanics responding to all three incidents found nothing wrong with the elevators upon their arrival and could not determine the reasons for the failures. Zuino said he hopes to know within a week whether the power pack change solved the elevator problems. Students, however, have complained of other difficulties with the elevators that go beyond elevator failures. College sophomore Laura Protzmann recalled one incident in which she was going down to the lobby from her room on the 21st floor. At the 18th floor, the elevator stopped and the doors only opened "slightly." "A couple of minutes later they opened all the way and I got out really quickly," Protzmann said. Zuino said this type of problem is more common and "routine," adding that the mechanics usually take care of it without having to notify him.